Review: Love Her Wild by Atticus

The first collection of poetry by Instagram sensation Atticus. Love Her Wild is a collection of new and beloved poems from Atticus, the young writer who has captured the hearts and minds of hundreds of thousands of avid followers on his Instagram account @atticuspoetry, including superstars like Karlie Kloss and Shay Mitchell. He was dubbed the “#1 poet to follow” by Teen Vogue and “the world’s most tattoo-able” poet by Galore magazine, in Love Her Wild, Atticus captures what is both raw and relatable about the smallest and the grandest moments in life: the first glimpse of a new love in Paris; skinny dipping on a summer’s night; the irrepressible exuberance of the female spirit; or drinking whiskey in the desert watching the rising sun. With honesty, poignancy, and romantic flair, Atticus distills the most exhilarating highs and the heartbreaking lows of life and love into a few perfectly evocative lines, ensuring that his words will become etched in your mind—and will awaken your sense of adventure.

Atticus is a young poet who keeps his identity anonymous which I think works in a funny way because poetry is such a personal thing to a writer, it’s their deepest fears or their intimate love put into words and with Atticus, us as readers, have come to connect with him and his poetry despite the fact that we might not know his age or what he looks like, it’s all about his work and his true feelings which might be why he keeps his identity a secret and I’d like to say I find that pretty cool.

Atticus’ debut book is a collection of his new work mixed with some of his older pieces, its divided in three sections love, Her and wild which when put together form the title of the book Love Her Wild. The first section love is just as the title says, about love, exploring love and maybe a little heartbreak as well, the second part, Her, is mainly about Atticus’ muse and/or some form of female figure and lastly wild is about life and life while being young.

Some of his pieces are very raw which I really liked, I’m a very romantic person and not only in the love kind of way, but in the life kind of way and there’s something that I can’t really explain about Atticus’ poetry that I’m just so drawn to, one of the pieces that really stuck out to me was

‘Does the sun promise to shine?
No, but it will,
even behind the darkest clouds it will,
And no promise
will make it shine longer or brighter
for that is its fate,
to burn until it can burn no more.
So to love you is not my promise,
it is my fate,
to burn for you until I can burn no more’

I just find it so romantic and heartwarming and I love the love behind it, but I wouldn’t be able to pick favorites for I’d have to quote the whole book. I also find his pieces very relatable and I think anyone who has ever fallen in love will do as well. Something that I found very interesting about it is that it has a certain “geography” to it, he talks about going to the desert a lot and the stars which I love, he also references whiskey a few times but mostly, specially in wild, he talks

about being wildly young which I, as an eighteen year old teenager, really liked because even though I’m not the teenager that goes out with friends to drink whiskey and has late night adventures to the desert and I couldn’t relate to those pieces, I was still quite fond of them, which for me is a very special thing about this book, it had the ability to do something that I had never experienced before, it made me love a piece of literature without having to relate to it which was amazing.

And while doing my research about Atticus and his poetry I read that he has been called out for “glorifying/romanticizing brokenness” and reading his work I guess I could see why some people could think that but Atticus himself has said that it’s not his intention to do that, he just wants to let the world know that it’s okay to be a little broken, none of us are designed to be perfect, which is so true, so some people are just a little chipped and some of us are completely shattered but that doesn’t make us any less beautiful and that’s something people need to realize and I absolutely think that his poetry sends that message.

Overall? I love Atticus. He’s amazingly talented and his debut book is stunning, I’d recommend it to pretty much everyone, but specially lovers, romantics and the wild youth. Go to B&N or your local bookstore and flip through the pages because this book is so worth a chance, the only thing that I didn’t absolutely love about this book was the cover, I’m not really fond of it but that’s so not the point, it’s all about the poetry and Atticus’ amazing gift with words. I can wholeheartedly say I’m in love with his work and his way with words.